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Saturday, October 15, 2011

I'm kind of a cookie gourmet, queen of the cookie eaters, if you will. Cookies are my weak spot. Well, that and cinnamon rolls but we'll save that for another day. OK, yes, chocolate cake as well but that's beside the point here. *deep breath* So, you might say I've seen a cookie or two in my day. I love the concept of Smiley Cookies with their cute little smiling faces just begging to brighten your day for a moment. I also love Halloween so you can imagine my delight to find Halloween Cookies with smiles in my mailbox!

12 little hand iced Jack O Lantern cookies were sent to us by Smiley Cookie to share about here on our blog. That's one dozen if you're counting. The packaging was amazing with a cute smiley face box holding our nicely wrapped and packaged cookies. Absolutely nothing was broken when they arrived. Not a single broken cookie! Which means that you could serve these cookies for a Halloween Party Snack and not worry about having to compensate for breakage.

Halloween Smiley Cookies make a great gift too and can be shipped to whomever you specify. You can get a Halloween Gift Basket to send to your college student, grandparents and anyone that you really like. I suppose you could send some to someone you dislike although that might be strange unless they don't really know you dislike them in which case it might be....umm, ya, strange. So, forget that idea and just send them to someone you like.

These cute little suckers are a little on the pricey side so run over and like Smiley Cookies on Facebook and they will give you a 20% off coupon for Halloween Cookies.

Happy Halloween!

I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.

Friday, October 14, 2011

This post must be written lightening fast because I must leave soon to pick up my daughter from the high school's Sadie Hawkins dance and ferry her and her date to their next destination. How's that for a long, stressful run-on sentence full of far too many prepositional phrases.

We had the distinct pain honor of hosting the dance dinner for 19 teenagers tonight. I don't know about you but I remember Sadie Hawkins as the dance where the guys always said no. Seriously, teenage boys can cut a teenage girl's confidence to shreds. Oh who am I kidding, grown men still do that. So we had dinner in the backyard complete with Halloween lights and a cauldron full of bubbling homemade root beer. My husband loves the homemade root beer and is always the dry ice master chef of the brew. At one point, he came in from outside all dejected because apparently the ladle had fallen into the cauldron and the kids had been trying to fish it out with their hands.... he didn't feel like drinking root beer with possible teenage cooties I guess.

"Moldy Rolls" created with green food coloring.

We also served Spooky Salad, Moldy Rolls and Spaghetti and Eyeballs. Interested in making some eyeballs of your own? Check this out...

Mix the meats together thoroughly with the seasonings. You could also finely chopped onion and/or garlic salt if desired. Set aside. Remove the pimento from the green olives. Slice black olives into thin strips. Replace the pimento in the green olives with a small slice of black olive to look like a pupil. To make the meatballs, roll a small amount of meat mixture into a ball. Press your finger into the center of the meatball to make a hole where you can insert the olive "eye". Place the meatballs onto a cookie sheet lined with aluminum foil and bake for 35 minutes at 350 degrees.

I can't wait to get all the post-dance drama dishing later. Or maybe I should be scared....

*UPDATE:After all was said and done (and Josie is now home in bed) pretty much all I got was "I sure like dating because it shows me who I don't want to spend the rest of my life with". Ha!!

Thursday, October 13, 2011

Thursday proved to be a very busy day. I wore my taxi driver hat 8 times today. 8 times=8 trips to drop off/pick up and back home again. Seriously, when will these kids get their driver's licenses...? And the real crappy thing is, I don't even have a taxi driver hat. Do they sell taxi driver hats? Do they come in pink? Hmm..

On one of these trips it was just me and Oliver. Somehow we got talking about birthing babies. Ya, I know, weird. He said he didn't think anyone could really remember actually being born, like the actual birth. I said ya, I don't think so, and he made some strange "squirming and trying to be born" movement. My kids are unique. Then he asked me about his older brother's "autopsy". Say what? Autopsy? Ya Mom, you know when he wouldn't come out and they had to cut him out. Oh yes, C-Section, I said, not autopsy because that's what they do to dead people to find out how they died. And so he says don't judge me, I'm not good with words. Fair enough.

Welcome to the 2011 Fall Fashionista Giveaway Event! The 100+ bloggers participating in this event are so excited to bring you the chances to win thousands in drool-worthy fashion items! You can enter at each blog participating and enter for the grand prize of a Fendi Mini Beige Red Pochette Bag!!

Here at Artsy Chaos you can enter to win over $60 worth of gorgeous fashion jewelry sponsored by DuelOnJewel.com and GoFavor.com. To find all about these great sponsors, please visit our review posts for Duel On Jewel and Go Favor.

Please use the Rafflecopter form below to enter the giveaway here. You may do either mandatory entry to enter; you must complete both to unlock extra entries. Make sure your java is up to date and be patient, the form may be slow to load. If you are unable to see either the entry form or the GFC widget to follow us, please refresh the page and that should do the trick! After you enter here, use the linky at the bottom of this post to hop to another participating blog and enter their giveaway. You can enter them all for chances at winning! Good luck!

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Wednesday, October 12, 2011

So many things are just not like they used to be; sturdy, solid, simple and built to last. Everything these days seems so rushed, hurried and disposable, including so many of the products on the market. Honestly, we get real tired of rolling the dice every time we purchase a product. I bet you do too.

Jacob Bromwell is out of the ordinary. Established in 1819 with an idea to create solid cooking and kitchen ware, Jacob Bromwell creates products the same way they did back then and they are expected to last for generations. I inherited one of Jacob Bromwell's fine flour sifters from my father's family's estate. It may have belonged to his great-aunt Josephine or possibly his grandmother but in any case, it made its way to me many years later. I used to just turn the handle to feel how smoothly it turned the little wires inside the sifter. It was mesmerizing. Unfortunately, the sifter suffered during one of our moves in my early 20's and couldn't be put back together. I was thrilled to be able to review a brand new (yet oh so vintage feeling) flour sifter from Jacob Bromwell. As soon as I opened the box, I could feel the need to find some vintage recipes to try with my new sifter.

Inherited Vintage Recipe Box

I also inherited a recipe box that belonged to my father's great-aunt and grandmother's mother. Whew. Did you catch that? That makes her my great great grandmother. She came to the US from Holland as a young girl so seriously, some of the recipes are.... weird. Like pigeon pie. Care for a slice? Yea, I didn't think so. In this recipe box are booklets, brochures with recipes amongst the handwritten recipes and newspaper clippings. I decided upon a recipe for Apple Rolls - perfect for this Fall/Halloween season. The recipe is taken from Betty Crocker's 15 Prize Recipes celebrating their 15th Anniversary, 1921-1936, and is typed exactly as it was printed.

METHOD - Select apples that will cook quickly. Peel, core and chop fine. Put sugar and water in a pan 2 inches deep. Cook about 5 minutes over slow fire. While syrup is cooking, make up a rich biscuit dough. Roll about 1/4-inch thick. Spread with the finely chopped apples (or other fruit) and roll into a long roll. Cut into pieces about 1 1/2 inches wide. Place cut side down in the pan of hot syrup. Dot with butter and sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar. Place pan in oven and bake until apples are cooked and the crust is a golden brown. Lift out on platter and pour syrup around them. May be topped with whipped cream. TIME - bake 23 minutes. TEMPERATURE - 450° F., hot oven. SIZE OF PAN - 6x12 inches. AMOUNT - 12 servings. VARIATIONS - Fresh cherries, blackberries or loganberries, or other fruit, are just as delicious as apples in this dessert. Canned fruit may be drained and used, the juice added to the syrup. Part brown sugar or maple sugar may be used in the syrup.

Finely Chopped Fresh Jonathan Apples from the Backyard

Making Biscuit Dough with Jacob Bromwell's All-American Sifter (you can really see the frankenstein scar on my hand in this pic, yuck!)

Monday, October 10, 2011

There are a lot of party games and printable games out there on the internet. A lot of party games that well, are pretty much all the same and not that clever or involved. I mean, don't get me wrong, if you have a crazy family like I do a lot of lame games can be fun. But I found something much different and WAY BETTER. Insert = PartyGamesPlus.com!

Halloween is coming up and I have something perfect for your upcoming parties and get-togethers: Clues, Spells, and Curses Scavenger Hunt. Just the name is intriguing, right? I mean seriously, who doesn't want to cast a spell on smelly Uncle Charlie and Little Tommy's loud friend Helga! This downloadable game comes with everything, literally almost everything, you will need for an entire night of laughs and fun. The .PDF game is 25 pages long and you can use it over and over and over - it might even become a yearly tradition. The price may seem a little steep at $14.99 but remember that is on par or even less expensive than buying a box game at the store and this one you can continue to print and use for many, many years.

The game directions have you use a few items around the house to make some props, like this Dragon Blood. Fun, right? We're very excited to use this Scavenger Hunt game at our Halloween Party this year!

We'd also like to mention that PartyGamesPlus.com has games for many other occasions and themes including consultant parties. If you're a consultant for any number of companies like 31 Gifts, Tupperware, Scentsy, or *insert your company here*, you're sure to break the ice and engage your customers with the games available.

Eat, Drink and Be Scary!

Happy Halloween!

I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.

Sunday, October 09, 2011

We wanted to share a quick discount available from Crazy Dog T-shirts for Halloween. Did you know that they also have Halloween costumes available at some great prices? Of course, if you did you're thinking 'duh' and if you didn't, well, now you do.

Courtesy of Crazy Dog, you can use these codes: TRICK for $5 off any costume order, ORTREAT for 10% off any costume order;

whichever gives you the greater discount.

Happy Halloween!!

FTC Disclosure: We received no compensation for this post, monetary or otherwise but do have a relationship with CrazyDogTshirts.com.

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I only recommend products or services I have tried personally. It is up to the reader to review all terms and conditions of all offers. This blog does receive compensation both monetary and complimentary product. Shipping and fulfillment for giveaway prizes are the responsibility of the sponsor unless otherwise indicated.